In this chapter we show how to make half-fish, half - hold your breath - female character. A.k.a. Siren, Sea Maid etc. The reason why you had to hold your breath is that if you are already familiar with the type of character that Boris and I typically make, you will have probably noticed already that we tend to make clumsy trolls and goblins rather than delicate and effeminate forest and sea beings. And so we do not make female characters very often.
We show how to make the upper body of a girl and the tails of a fish, in such a way that the tail and fin look like the dress and feet of the character. In the variations we take this concept one step further and make a mermaid with a more sophisticated dress. We really wanted to make a Merman too, bit skipped that part for some reason. You can make your own mer-dudes by using the torso portion of the Centaur (half-man, half horse creature) lesson, in one of the following chapters and the fish part from the mermaid character. You can make all kinds of mer-things for that matter. I personally wanted to make a Mer-Miaou character at some point, but you've gotta draw a line somewhere eventually... Don't let me stop you though.
Another thing you can do, and I think I have seen a drawing like that somewhere, is to make a sort of inverted mermaid - the head of a fish, with the sulk and the bulging eyes, and the legs of a human. A visual pun of sorts. Applied to the centaur project, and I will sure mention it again when i get to it, this line of thought gives a human body and the head of a horse - which, if you think about it is one step away from making a Minotaur - the famous mythical monster in the Labyrinth, with the human body and the bull's head. To make a bull's head make the ears, lips and nostrils of the horse's head (that you will learn how to make in the Unicorn project).
It has been quite a while since we last posted, but we were busy with some non polymer clay fun. Dinko and I (Boris) had to put some time in organizing the third annual Midsummernight's sprinkle - essentially a water gun fight which happens traditionally in front of the national theater in Sofia. It has been a cool event - again. About 120 people showed up and had a great time for about five minutes. With this over we are steadily returning to polymer clay and hopefully will post often on the blog. Oh, almost forgot - here are some pictures from the water fight.
I (Boris) was really happy yesterday to see what Dinko's fans do. Susan Sherry Avarello set up a Flickr group for polymer clay creations inspired by Dinko's work. I have to say also that I personally really like Susan's work. Her creations can be found at her Etsy store and on Artfire. You must check out her work. I have to say too that the other thing I enjoy is the nickname she uses sometimes 'time4coffee'. For me personally it is always time for coffee. I drink almost 1/4 of a gallon of that stuff each day. Anyone who enjoys coffee and Dinko's work is in my 'coolest people' list.
In this chapter we show how to make a hobbit character, although we never use the word "hobbit" itself in the book, because it was the name of a race of creatures in the Lord of the Rings invented by Tolkien, so we didn't want to infringe copyright. We used "halfling" in the end, instead of hobbit, because our legal department is too busy just now. :) Anyway, hobbit or not, it was made to look like one, as you will recognize.
Believe it or not this is a Taurus. It is built for a friend of mine who will give it as a gift. Here are the specifications he gave me (Boris).
This is our friend Alexander playing with his son in the park. On the next picture is the gnome Alexander made. I (Boris) like a lot Alexander's attitide towards polymer clay. He uses it for purely recreational purposes, without building a stock of tools or clay. As you can see he did not adhere to the color scheme of the gnome. 'Those are the colors I had at hand' he says. He changed the hat a bit - instead of it being pointy, he made it curved at the top. The beard of his gnome has several colors, instead of the one color beard shown in the book. The head of the creature is smaller in comparison to the body than the ratio in the book project. Alexander doesn't care much about smoothing surfaces or making things look perfect, he uses the polymer clay sculpture to relax. In that respect I think he shares one of the main ideas Dinko and I had writing the book - polymer clay is for fun.
'Polymer clay fans are growing in numbers' - this is what the sales lady told me yesterday when I (Boris) went to buy some clay from my favorite polymer clay suppliers Dekar M.
Starting today we will do an extensive sneak-peek/ preview of all the project characters in our latest book Sculpting Mythical Creatures out of Polymer Clay. We start small, by showing how to make a gnome character – Rollieball Dropletson. Boris designed this character as an introductory project that requires very little prior skill or experience with clay, and next to no tools. You really need to know only two things – how to roll a ball, and how to make a rain-drop shape (also derivative of the simple ball). The idea is to make it comfortable for beginners to practise how to combine simple shapes to produce complex-looking results. At the end of the project we show several variation ideas and tips on how to make different gnome characters by varying facial hair.
